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"Dang it!"
I'm giving a lecture. It's not my 7th grade classroom, I have adults here, but I still can't cuss.
DuBois and Shapiro are out of their seats the moment the glass container shattered and me shouting out loud made them hurry to the front of the room where I am. Hopefully, they'll get closer to solving the atsrophage problem and further away form a workplace accident than me.
I look down on the floor to survey the damage, carefully taking a step back so as not to step int the shards of glass. My outburst was a little over the top. I do feel silly for getting DuBois and Shapiro to come up for this.
I just spilled the propylene glycol on my hand and on the floor. Luckily, the glass was empty otherwise, and it's not our alien microbes on the floor. God knows what they would do to Russian sub-flooring.
Instead, it's just a few dots of red on the off-white tile.
Ah...
I start feeling woozy even before the fact that it's my blood and I'm bleeding actually registers in my head. DuBois grabs me under my arm, before I sink down clumsily, and helps me sit back on the stool I have at my big table in front. He has my wrist in his other hand in a firm grip and raises it above the level of my shoulder.
"Dr. Shapiro, please get paper towels."
"Yes." She makes her way swiftly to the side of the room. My eyes follow before DuBois asks for my attention.
"Dr. Grace?" "Sorry...I'm just kind of a wuss with blood. I mean, my blood–"
I really am. That seems juvenile, I know, but no one except me comments on it.
"We will see what the damage is," DuBois says, completely calmly. I would say maybe I'm just not bleeding much, but I've come to know him as generally unflappable.
Shapiro comes back with the paper towels. "Thank you," DuBois says, just as calm and polite toward her, of course. "Put pressure on the wound."
"Will do." Shaprio takes one of the sheets she had already torn off and wads it up before wedging it in my hand. "Sorry if it hurts a little."
I suck air in through my teeth in that very moment. The paper is rough and Shapiro is pushing it against my palm hard.
"Good," DuBois says, though. He squeezes my wrist tighter in his grasp.
My vision had briefly started to tunnel, but I think it's coming back, looking at him in my periphery. Shapiro, in front of me, still thinks I'm a bit pale, though. "Are you okay?" She asks me very simply which, in her defense, I can't simply answer.
"I am. I just..." Alright, I feel a little queasy, but it's my own fault because I let my gaze sweep back over the blood on the floor and they're a lot bigger splotches than I saw at first.
She cuts me off. "Put your feet up on the table."
I do that. They're straight in line with me sitting up on the stool.
"Keep your hand elevated." It's DuBois who continues to hold it up. He moved to standing halfway behind me and has me leaning my shoulder back against his chest, too.
"It is best if you sit for ten minutes, then go straight to the infirmary."
I have no reason at all to argue with DuBois here, but is it that bad? I probably just need a bandaid. "Really? I don't need stitches, do I?"
All three of us look at my hand. Shapiro, slowly and carefully, lifts away the paper towel at one corner. I think all three of us then lean back and I, for my part, feel a rush of cold sweat on my neck.
"Maybe you do." I don't think I've seen DuBois have much of a change in his expression yet, but his brow also creases faintly. "I do hope supplementary arrangements can be made. This is an important lecture, after all," he supplies.
I just blink slowly and sort of nod, trying to pull myself together again. Stratt will figure it out...Shaprio puts pressure back on my palm. I wince and wiggle my fingers.
Ten minutes are a long time, and I do increasingly feel weird to have that much attention on me when I'm not even teaching.
"So, you both know first aid?" "Yes." "Yes." DuBois and Shapiro say in unison.
My attempt is definitely the smallest and probably the most clumsy of all small talk, ever.
It eventually draws a soft laugh from Shapiro, though, and then I also see one appear at the corner of DuBois mouth.
Darn it...I hope Stratt knows how lucky she is to have these incredibly capable people volunteering for her suicide mission. Despite that very sobering thought, I finally also crack a smile.
I clear my throat, hoping to get rid of some of the awkwardness stuck in it. I guess, I might as well tell them some of what we're all here for.
"Fortunately, the container was empty," I begin.
Shapiro and DuBois's attention back on astrophage right away, even as they're holding my bleeding hand. I rake the fingers of my other hand over my jeans and lean forward, away from DuBois a little just to sit up straighter. DuBois doesn't move up behind me, so I assume I have some color in my face again and don't look I'm going to keel right over. I keep my feet up on the table, though.
"But, so far, the only way we've found of killing astrophage is to mechanically destroy the cell membrane..."
I talk a little about the first experiments I did on the astrophage, and even manage to not make it look as clumsy as my dropping the glass container now. I figure it must have shattered in my hand before I even dropped it on the floor and made a mess. It can't be anything worse than a manufacturing defect. However, if we're going to store more astrophage in these, I can't help but feel a little bit uneasy.
Well, it's either that, or the fact that DuBois calls it on the dot when the 10 minutes are up.
"It looks like it goes a little bit deeper," Shapiro says with a sympathetic wince, while peeling away the paper towel to replace it again...I did bleed through two wadded up sheets a good amount.
"Ah," Crud... I sigh, and finally slowly put my feet down. My knees don't feel shaky anymore, thankfully. "To the infirmary I go, then." I try to sound lighthearted.
"We will accompany you," DuBois says.
"Oh. Um, thank you both, but..." I try to wave off the offer, but I think I've readily been overruled as DuBois keeps holding my arm up at the elbow and Shapiro keeps the pressure on my hand. I yield. "Thank you."
My 10-minute talk left plenty of room for questions, which I'm glad Shapiro and DuBois both ask, because the walk over to the infirmary is just a little too long and awkward otherwise.
I don't think anything is so confidential that I can't talk about it outside of a conference room here; we're basically on the last leg of preparations. Anyone who is at the Baikonur Cosmodrome these days knows what's going on.
All three of us decide that I'm okay on my own now once we reach the infirmary.
I know they volunteered for this...but watching DuBois and Shapiro walk away together, knowing that one of these two people is going to go die in space, ties a knot in my stomach.